Workshop objectives
The ophiolitic bodies from the Western Alpine belt are lithosphere remnants of the Ligure-Piemontese basin. This basin developed in Middle to Late Jurassic, in conjunction with the opening of the Central Atlantic Ocean. Most of the Alpine ophiolites preserve primary features recalling the magma-poor continental margin of Western Iberia. On the other hand, some of the Alpine ophiolitic bodies do not show clear relationships with continental material and display structural and compositional similarities to modern slow and ultraslow spreading ridges. For instance, the ophiolitic bodies representing oceanic domains of the basin locally preserve morphological highs made of gabbroic plutons intruded into mantle peridotites, similar to the oceanic core complexes.
The three-days international workshop aims at discussing multidisciplinary aspect s related to continental rifting and formation/evolution of an oceanic basin. Contributions from MORB type ophiolites and their modern analogues are welcome to help the debate among geologists, petrologists, geochemists and geophysicists.
Main topics to be covered include:
- tectonic, magmatic and sedimentary records of the rifting evolution in the continental crust;
- interactions between melt/peridotite reactions and deformation events within the subcontinental mantle;
- experimental modelling of tectonic and petrologic processes occurring in extending lithosphere;
- heterogeneities in abyssal and ophiolitic peridotites as a record of depletion/refertilisation events;
- accretion of gabbroic plutons within mantle peridotites;
- relationships between gabbroic sequences and basalt lava flows;
- absolute timing and duration of magmatic events;
- tectonic evolution leading to the exposure of mantle and gabbroic sequences at the seafloor;
- seafloor hydrothermalism.
